Writers, historical and writers very young

Well this has been a non-event of a week. I won't bore you with the details of my nose blowing, which has subsided to about a blow every hour or so, but now M has the dreaded bug and he's ploughing through yards of tissue. Having passed the lowest point last week when what I really wanted to do was go back to bed and have someone bring me cups of tea and tomato soup (it didn't happen) I have now made it to the post office and to Sainsbury's. M, in the meantime, felt really horrible yesterday and today, and undoubtedly will have to stay home tomorrow, when I go to friends.

I have been reading the recently published Goldenford novel by Jay Margrave, Luther's Ambassadors, and although I'm not normally a great fan of historical novels, I am going to be very brief, so that I can get back to it. It's about Anne Boleyn's machinations in her quest to get into a position of power at Court and it also includes Jay's hero, Priedeux, who was the star of her last novel, The Gawain Quest. I'm finding it very interesting, and it will make me look up Anne, to find out more about the real historical story. We at Goldenford were very pleased to hear a few days ago that Luther's Ambassadors is to be the Editor's choice in February, at the Historical Novel Society, and its review will be featured in their magazine and on line.

Inspired by this, I decided to send Tainted Tree to the Historical Novel Society for a review, in the hope that it will fit into the category of a 'multiple time novel'. I have always regarded it as contemporary novel, but with the description of events in the early part of the century, Addie's grandmother's letters from WW2 and her mother's diaries and letters from the sixties, it does actually give something of a cultural history of the 20th century.

I missed Guildford Writers this week, but hope to be at the Goldenford meeting next week, when we can discuss a programme of events to promote our books to a wider reading public. Well maybe one or two, at least.

I had a chat on the phone with the offspring today, and was pleased to hear that GD3 (seven) got an award from the headmistress for writing something with 'fantastic adjectives'. Creative writing groups may dismiss them, but adjectives are alive and well at primary schools. At around seven, I was praised for a story which contained the word 'suddenly'. Good to know that one of my grandchildren may be following in my footsteps.

Cold and Heating economies

I have had a cold which has progressed along predictable lines.

Day 1: Tickle in throat

Day 2: Sore throat and cough

Day 3: Runny nose

Day 4: Sneezing all day

Day 5: (Today) Runny nose again with occasional sneezes.

Remedies taken: Lots of clementines plus Vitamin C tablets; Echinacea; Cough linctus and aspirin. Vaseline on sore lips.

Needless to say, as a result of this, I have not done anything at all in the last few days. Fortunately, I did my Sainsbury's trip before the sneezing stage, and since then, haven't left the house. It's been so cold, I haven't wanted to. Irene asked me whether M (heating engineer) thought it better to leave the heating on overnight, so that it didn't have to work so hard the next day. M is very definite about immersion heaters in this context. Since there is always heat loss, it is never practical from a financial point of view to leave it on night and day. The heat loss when it is on is never balanced by it having to work less hard, or whatever, on the following day. When it comes to heating, it is a slightly different question and on a par with should one have double glazed windows. When we were first married, we rejected double glazing from the point of view that it has to be in many years before the initial costs are repaid by savings in heating usage. Later, when we were in a better position, financially, we installed it anyway. The reason - because the rooms were less inclined to be draughty and we therefore had greater comfort.

The heating argument is similar. In the last few freezing days, we have had our heating on from approximately 7.00 a.m. till about midnight. We don't have it on overnight, and we set the boiler up high during the day to achieve a comfortable temperature. We reduce it if necessary during the day. We would not benefit financially by having it on overnight. As darkness falls, it gets colder, and there would be greater heat loss. Fast asleep, we would be unaware of any heat benefits. However, the temperature has been around zero, falling to -3 or -5 at night. Say it were to fall to - 20. We might then be tempted to leave the heating on overnight, not to save money, but to increase our comfort. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, though.

As it is, I have been trying to conserve heat by drawing curtains at dusk, pulling down all window blinds and wearing an extra tee-shirt under the other layers. Today, it's been milder, but because my personal thermostat is not working properly, I still feel cold. I don't feel capable of being creative, or of being efficient. Not even in the mood to read - and I have about six books queuing for attention. Still I was pleased to see my letter to Writers' News published at the head of the column this month - on a subject of concern to me and which I've touched on before - loaning books to all the relations. (Friends abroad, this doesn't apply to you - I realise that the postage costs push up the cost of the book.)

Finance and fiction

Financial programmes abound at the moment. I heard Mark Dampier, a financial expert, saying something I’ve been saying for ages – that is, don’t borrow in order to invest. What he actually said was, ‘If you said you wanted to borrow £200,000 to buy shares, people would think you were mad. So why do people do that in order to invest in property?’ I think we both make the distinction that it doesn’t apply to buying the house you want to live in, but to people buying into something they think is rising and causing it to rise more, artificially – that is, until it comes crashing down.

Watching some sad stories on the TV last night, though, illustrated the fact that problems with the property market don’t just occur when people use property as an investment vehicle. These stories were about people who borrowed more on their mortgages in order to carry out repairs to their houses; people who thought they were in the perfect house for them, but when a job loss or loss of commission occurred, they could no longer afford it. It still illustrates the same problem though. Unfortunately, people strained themselves to buy at the top of the market, and were then left high and dry when property found its truer level.

Mark Dampier also seemed to be suggesting that this was the time to start looking for bargains in the Stock Market, and this is in accord with Warren Buffet’s quoted comment –

“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”

I liked this quote too:

“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.”

My current reading is The Catcher in the Rye. I think this is a bit of a sacred cow, but I’m not that keen on it. I know it’s supposed to be the thoughts of a troubled teenage boy, but I find it rather self-conscious and a bit self-indulgent. It is a stream of consciousness type book, but like PD James, whom I heard speaking on Women’s Hour recently, I really prefer books with a beginning, middle and end – a bit like the ones I like writing.

Talking of which, if you want to support me or my books, please vote for me at the Preditors and Editors site. There are no prizes – it’s just a profile raising exercise for books published in 2008. Tainted Tree is there under Novels (general or something like that) and Have Wine Will Travel is under Novels - Romance and also Short Stories.

People are showing interest. The one copy of Tainted Tree at Surrey Libraries (they still haven’t got in the additional four that were ordered by the Friends of E. Horsley Library) was out on loan before Christmas, and also reserved, and since then, it’s been out and back again, and is once more out and reserved. So hopefully, I’m building up a fan club.

Family, finance and frost

It's been a hectic few days. Two parties on New Year's Eve - one at the neighbour's and then straight on to dinner at my sister in law's with some of her friends, and M's brother in law - one sister and spouse weren't there because of flu. A huge meal, and other indulgences and we watched the new year in with the fantastic firework display in London on the TV. M & I got to bed at 1.30.

But we were up prompt the next morning as the Son&H and sprogs were visiting. GD1 is now the same height as me, having had her tenth birthday, last month.

I produced the nut roast I'd made last week, and turkey for the carnivores. Naturally, there was apple crumble. My d-i-l brought a huge box of Lindt chocolates. So there goes the diet for the next week. On Friday, we went to Guildford with the idea of going to Pizza Express. We didn't bank on them being quite so full. We had to wander off for half an hour and then returned at about 2.00. But Express was a misnomer. We had to wait another forty minutes after we'd got a table, and M was in full sarcasm mode by that time. The younger generation didn't want him making a fuss, so there were some tense moments. Actually I agreed with him. It was a bit much. But retailers and restaurants are obviously cutting down on staff, now, to economise, and we shall have to expect this sort of thing.

On Saturday, we had our neighbour invite, which went quite well. There were forteen in total - but I overdid the mini blinis, which were successful last year, and we're therefore still eating them as snacks and lunches. Also too many mushroom vol au vents, but M didn't mind polishing them off, and they've already gone.

On Sunday I put my feet up and read Saturday's paper, gleaning the financial pages for crumbs of comfort. This is the time to invest, if you have the stomach for it - and the cash of course. Even if the economy's in recession for another year and a half, the Stock Market will rise ahead of it. That's my belief at any rate.

Today, I've been getting things back in good order. Fortunately I didn't have to go out, as we had our first snow of 2009. It has been bitterly cold for probably the last ten days with more of the same forecast. I realise that other countries and other areas have much colder winters, but we are the south east of England, after all, and don't expect sub-zero temperature going on for days. Tomorrow, I'm to Irene for lunch and the forecast is zero all day, with -3 at night.

Diseased Trees and Acne on Amazon

I looked at Amazon on line to see how my books are progressing and realised that there is potential in adding tags to the books, so I added in 'cot death' and 'miscarriage' to my memoir, The Fruit of the Tree, and such things as ‘genealogy’, ‘adoption’ and ‘family tree’ to Tainted Tree. I should have done this earlier, because I know that people sometimes go to both those books looking for ideas about trees – in one case, fruit growing and the other, diseases in trees. These things pop up in the on site adverts, too. I had a quick look at Irene’s The Moon’s Complexion, too, and saw that in the Amazon adverts below, there are remedies for acne.

We had the first of the neighbour Christmas drinks gatherings and I was chuffed to be told by two of them that they had enjoyed reading Tainted Tree. My neighbour’s mother had bought an additional copy to give as a Christmas present to a friend too. Also on the books front, some time in the New Year, I am to take part in a workshop on Writing your Life Story. I will bring in my experience of writing ‘Fruit’ to that. And I’ve now been invited to participate in a celebration of the 30^th anniversary of the twinning of Guildford and Freiburg in Germany, later in the year. I am still thinking out the logistics of that. I’m not a great lover of travel, particularly where I don’t know the language. It must be as a result of Irene’s invitation there last year – which is how they got to hear about Goldenford.

We spent Christmas Day with my brother in law, who catered marvellously, and keeps his kitchen immaculate. I am envious of his orderliness, which far outshines anything I do in my kitchen. This is obviously to do with nature, not nurture.

We have another drinks get together on New Year’s Eve, followed by dinner at M’s sister with the rest of the siblings and spouses (or is it spice?) At any rate, it’s bound to be a good evening. And the Son&H with his family are due here on New Year’s Day. I hope he can spare the time to solve some of my computer problems. I have completely mucked up a CD trying to back up my files with Nero. Just as well my cooking's better than my computer trouble shooting. I’ve made a nut terrine, which always goes down well, in case I decide to cook a roast. This will cater for the veggies and everything else will be vegetarian. My own nbeighbour party is in early January, when the family have gone. So far, nine acceptances, so I'll be needing to do a full day's cooking and preparation for that.

Technology strikes

We have been at the mercy of our electric and electronic contraptions this week. One night, as we prepared to bed we saw that the electric clock wasn't working. It was late, and we thought there was something wrong with it. I was quite disappointed that it had gone wrong after all the years we'd had it. Only the next morning did we discover that the heating wasn't working and neither was the freezer in the utility room. Since then M has been isolating circuits and wires and we still haven't found the cause.

As if electrical problems weren't enough, the computer went wrong. Several times this week, I had the Blue Screen of Death, as my son describes it. It isn't the first time; it's happened a few times in the last couple of months. Thinking it was something I'd installed, I called in a computer engineer, who trouble shoots for other friends. He had it on the bench for a weekend, but nothing showed up. All went quiet for a bit; then the problem returned this week. When the engineer came last week, I gave him the new laptop to set up, which he did while dealing with error messages on my computer. I couldn't use the laptop, because every time I pressed the '@', I got quote marks. After the engineer visited, two things happened, the computer went caput again, after I had spent two hours typing in an article - and the laptop reverted to factory settings.

It transpired that M had said yes to something he shouldn't have, and we had to call out the engineer again. When he arrived, we were assembling a hat and coat stand, using the whole hall to do it. Meanwhile the other computer had been returned to the place I bought it, and they'd had it on the bench for 24 hours. They rang up shortly afterwards and said there was nothing wrong with it, but by the time I'd had a cup of tea and got my coat on, to go and collect it, they called again to tell me it had failed and they'd found It's there was a fault on the main board. It's a bit of a relief really. Intermittent faults leave you feeling very vulnerable.

In order to accommodate the hat stand in the porch, we have had to move out the house plant that has been growing there for the last fifteen years. Just as well, really, as the ivy at the base of the plant had embedded itself in the wallpaper, and as we moved it out, the plant left a trail of muddy brown water on the carpet. We are now exposing it to the weather to see what happens. M thinks the hallstand is old fashioned, but when have we ever been modern?

Cards have been coming in and going out; likewise, invitations to drinks over the holiday period. We did a book sale last week, and as a piece de resistance, Irene has installed on her blog the Goldenford elves. Go, look and admire.

And happy holidays to all my friends.

Hibernating and Socialising

I have no affection for Winter. This last two or three weeks I've felt as if the cold is seeping into my bones. The heating has been on for hours on end. And I hate the dark closing in and squeezing the daylight hours into a smaller and smaller space. Today it was raining. Just pouring down. I didn't like that either. Roll on the end of the year so I can look forward to the lengthening of the days.

Even so, I have reluctantly been out a few times, and though I didn't want to go, it was fine when I got there. Lunch last week at the Holiday Inn in Guildford with a friend. Neither of us wanted to be anywhere cold and draughty so that was a good choice, though very expensive for what it was. And I didn't like the way they made off with the credit card as soon as we'd ordered. Two Goldenford meetings in the last couple of weeks - one to discuss our future arrangements, including selling our books at the Farnham Christmas Market on Tuesday, 16th December at the Maltings. Look out for us if you're there. We're selling signed copies of our books. At the other meeting we discussed the possibility of taking on another author.

M & I also went to Surrey University's Annual Lecture, held at Guildford Cathedral with Professor Lord Winston as the guest speaker, and prior to that a reception for the guests with lots of champagne. It did alas cause me to watch the lecture with double vision.

The Reading Circle also had its Christmas meeting with refreshments contributed by all of us. We discussed The Road Home, which most of us enjoyed very much. I was very much in sympathy with Lev, the East European hero who comes to London and faces grim conditions and low paid work, just to support his mother and daughter back home. But he does make friendships with those he meets on the way. There was something of a fairy tale element to this story, in spite of the hardships. It was a worthy winner of the Orange Prize.